It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection. These are the times when maps fade, old landmarks crumble and direction is lost. Forwards is backwards now, so we glance sideways at the strange lands through which we are all passing, knowing for certain only that our destination has disappeared. We are unready to meet these times, but we proceed nonetheless, adapting as we wander, reshaping the Earth with every tread. Behind us we have left the old times, the standard times, the high times. Welcome to the irregular times.

The emerging media consensus about why Americans Elect failed is wrong. Media analysts — from Linda Feldman to Will Marshall to Noreen Malone — have declared that the corporate-presidential nominating system’s death came from not having a position or a candidate and instead building a blank platform that anyone could use. The emerging media consensus asserts that if only Americans Elect had an ideology, a position, some political principles driving it, it would have been more likely to attract followers and succeed.

Hogwash. Americans Elect had an ideology. Americans Elect had a position. It’s called “centrism,” which is a euphemism for the interests of the high-powered financial sector in America. That’s the group that funded Americans Elect, and those are the interests that Americans Elect couldn’t stop itself from kissing up to (source | source | source).

Even after its political death, Americans Elect can’t stop slipping into advocacy for “centrism.” Take the organization’s latest post on Twitter:

No one will stop you from saying what you like about Americans Elect, but if you want to be accurate, don’t say that it was too darned neutral.

I come from California, and their praise of the Top Two system to elect more “centrists” (which btw, probably wouldn’t even be true. Top Two will likely just be a net benefit for incumbents, which will make it much more difficult to dethrone them now) is pretty funny. The problem in California isn’t a lack of “centrists” (for which, in the last election, more came in from the Democratic side), but inane super majority requirements for things like passing the damn budget and tax increases, amongst others. Proportional representation for our legislature probably wouldn’t hurt either

I must admit to having a huge problem with the concept of ‘centrism’…my problem is that I just don’t know what it means. Liberals (or leftists, or progressives, or whatever you want to call the basic phenomenon) believe in some basic principles, and so, I guess, do conservatives (or rightists, or tea partiers, or whatever). But when I think of ‘centrists’ all I can think of is people who don’t believe in anything fundamental at all. ‘Centrism’ isn’t ‘compromise’…history has proven over and over again that one can be either a liberal or a conservative and compromise. ‘Centrism’ isn’t pragmatism…most liberals and conservatives believe themselves (and perhaps rightly) to be pretty pragmatic. ‘Centrism’ just means ‘don’t rock the boat’…don’t make any waves, don’t cause any trouble, just be a ‘good German’ (with sincere apologies to actual Germans). Let the rich guys keep getting richer, and the poor guys keep getting poorer. At the end of the day, it’s really just a code-word for ‘corporatism’. I have worked enough in the corporate world to know that executives are defined by their complete lack of passionate personal beliefs other than the belief in making money and to hell with everything (and everyone) else. It’s just a sickness.

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